Monitoring Audio

C

cjl467

Member
It's been smooth sailing with my DVX for a while now, but I'm shooting some stuff for a documentary right now, and I was thinking about this.

I'm a one-man crew so I should be monitoring my own audio. Normally, I just look at the meters, but I know how stupid that really is in most cases -- so now I'm using my good old ear-muff style headphones, here's the problem: I hate it. First of all, it looks completely dorky to physically be "plugged in" to my camera. Second, it's a huge pain to take them on and off (so that I can have some normal conversation) while juggling an expensive camera in my hands.

Both are things I'm willing to sacrifice for good audio, but does anyone do it differently? I was kind of thinking about getting a discreet ear-piece for one ear and just doing it that way, but I'm sure that has its disadvantages.

Maybe I'm just dreaming and we're all forced to suffer this great injustice -- in that case, comfort me, fellow filmmakers.
 
Depending on the model of headphones you're using, you may be able to wear them on one ear only. The Sony MDR-7506's remain quite comfortable (and stay in place) if you take one of the ear cups off your ear and place it on the side of your head just behind the ear. Monitoring in one ear only takes some getting used to, but it makes communication much easier.

Another handy trick is to avoid taking off your headphones. If you hang your `phones around your neck, you need two hands to put them back on. However, if you just move the ear cups off your ears without taking the set off, you just have to drop the cups back into place (ie. with one hand). If you think putting headphones back on with a camera in one hand is akward, try it with a 12' boom pole.

Of course, you can also get one-ear only headsets designed for camera work, but these tend to be a bit more expensive.

In-ear monitors are certainly available, again at a greater cost than comparable closed-back circumaural monitoring headphones. Whats more, often to be truly effective they should be custom-moulded to the shape of your ears.

Another small modification that may make your headphones a bit more ergonimic is to shorten the cord. Moving that 1/8" jack a bit further up the cable with decrease the annoying cable drag on the `phones, as well as preventing that swinging loop of cable from snagging on anything.
 
Hey man, headphones are a tool of the trade, dont bogart the suckers - learn to love em!

Thats just how it is... but SMuirs points are really great advice.
 
Caring how you look when shooting is an attitude you need to lose. Having pit and back sweat stains, headphone hair, and smelling like week old garbage often goes with the territory. Some dorky headphones are the least of your appearence concerns (of course you need maitain a professional apprearance but we are blue not white color workers).

As for putting the phones on, you need to learn the shoulder shrug method. You keep the phones just behind your ears with the pads touching the back of your ear and then you can easily put them over or take them off with your shoulder and sometimes just the right head shake. With a little practice it becomes second nature.

Cheers
 
as these guys have said, wearing propper cans is really the best way to go. However I have been tinkering with the idea of trying some in ear phones.

They can get bloody expensive, but my research has found the Sennheiser CX300 In-ear Earphones, which are reasonably priced and get consistently good reviews and they only cost around US$50.

So not a huge outlay if you buy them but go back to cans. And least you'll have some nice earphones for your ipod!
 
The Sennheiser CX300's are decent headphones for the money, but when we tried them out during a foley session we had a lot of problems with the headphones feeding back into the mic at moderate monitoring levels. This probably won't be an issue for most applications, but it seems to indicate a less than perfect seal against both escaping monitor feed and external noises.

They also won't entirely remedy the communication issue, as you still have to remove them to have a normal conversation without an open mic. This can be a problem since they're quite a bit trickier to propperly put back on than the 7506's are.

As for the aesthetics of headphone wearing; you'll have to resolve that one yourself. The practical demands of production have forced many of us to adopt a look that occasionally veers into AV-club nerd-dom. However, I doubt the headphones make you look quite as ridiculous as you imply, cjl476.
 
I for the most part agree with everyone's suggestions, but there is one thing I have to say. Even though it may seem silly to some to worry about personal looks/smells/foriegn body matter/etc, it is actually of tantamount importance when producing a documentary or ENG stuff. If you're a one man band operation and you have to show up, talk to someone to get comfortable with them, then clip a lav mic onto them in the right place, then interview them while you're also having to shoot them and monitor audio, you're going to absolutley *need* to look as presentable/normal as possible. There are the obvious hygeine stuff that just goes with the territory of life, I mean, you don't really wanna be sweaty in public, no? But, as for the headphones/dork factor, it's also important, because, in my experience, it's a lot easier for someone to talk to the guy behind the camera if they only have one discreet earbud in their right ear rather than two enormous muffs over both ears that mae it seem like you couldn't possibly be listening like a human being, not to mention the wierd audio delay that might prove to be quite a handicap in trying to maintain a conversation.
These are just my opinions when dealing with a documentary situation, but, having had the doc/ENG experience, I can tell you it's actually quite important.
Peace,

-Harry
 
I was covering an interview with one of the former governors of Hawaii recently. While I didn't dress to the nines I did dress neatly, made sure I didn't smell like a wet rag, and was very polite. And there was a special 100th anniversary celebration for the City of Honolulu that I covered. I ended up wearing a long-sleeved shirt and tie but gave up the idea of a coat as it was just too warm and humid.

Whenever I had to do a one-man-band interview I still wore headphones but was sure to make eye contact with the person I was interviewing. The headphones didn't matter because eye contact assured the interviewee that I was paying attention.

Nowdays I wear a pair of Etymotic earphones. It provides a heck of a lot more isolation and allows me to get a much better idea of the audio being captured by the camera.

Along that line, if sound is needed for coverage, I _always_ monitor audio. The day I fail to do that is the day a cable's going to go bad, RF noise is going to wreak havoc with a wireless system, or wind is going to asault a mic in an unpredictable way.

As CJL467 said, just looking at the meters isn't any assurance of a good audio signal. I know of someone who has made a habit of doing exactly that and quite often what he thought was good audio consisted of static from noisy mic connections or plain old crappy sound.

As others have mentioned so many times before, shooting video without an audio monitor is like shooting video without a viewfinder. You just won't know what you'll get until it's too late.
 
You make a good point Harry, and it's the exact reason I was thinking about getting the earbuds in the first place.
I have been in the situation you described and I am, well, not bald, but let's say "follicley challenged" and so with a set of cans on I do look a little like wabbit's av.
But with better teeth.

Let me ask you this, what brand of buds do you use, and how have they worked for you, any tips etc?


Also, Sensui, what model of the etymotics do you have?

Cheers
 
I am starting to get the impression that everyone pictures me as some disgusting smelly troll. :zombie_smiley:

To clarify my point. Yes, appearence in many situations is very crutial to your job. But not to the point it undermines how well you can do your job. I show up at blacktie extravaganza in a nice dress shirt and slacks but will not where a jacket because I can't do my job properly with one. Seattle is having a record heatwave and I have been booming outside all day for most of the last week. My pits are wet and after 12 hours in the sun I am not smelling like a bed of roses. Do I wish I were fresher, sure, but that is what a hard days work costs you.

Headphones can certainly separate you from your subject but at the same time you are going to miss a lot with earbuds. It is certainly your choice of compromises to make.

But the excuse of "looking dorky" is just downright lame. I, as a sound guy, and all the good cameramen I know have to put themselves in all sorts of unflattering positions to get the sound/picture we need (and crew members have the pictures to prove it). If I used even 1% of my brain to how stupid I look while doing my job I would quit tomorrow because I am not dedicated enough to do the job right.

If it is vanity driving your choice then quit the profession. That is the only point I am making.

Cheers
 
Hehe, and I think of Yankee as a drunk santa.

Wabbit, I agree your point 100%. I direct commercials all over the world and the things I see my crew do to get the right sound, shot, stunt, etc. constantly impresses me. It's one of the reasons I love shooting so much.

However as I've started delving into the doco/video world, and having done some one man gigs where I am the cameraman, sound guy, director and interviewer, it does feel awkward to be trying to have an in-depth conversation with someone with cans on.

I don't care if I look dorky, but in that particular situation I do want to look more like an interviewer than a sound guy. That's why I have been pondering the ear-buds, that's all.
 
I feel incredibly stupid when I'm trying to get steady video with my DIY stabilizer, doing sort of a slow crab-walk with my knees bent... but it's worth it to get my end result.
 
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